Foul graffiti litters the walls, inside and out, quite a bit of it misspelled. The doors cannot be locked because most of the locking mechanisms have been destroyed.

Insulation for cabling and wires, for plumbing pipes, lies like confetti in the hallways and rooms — and looks like forgotten streamers in the elementary cafeteria.

And while it looks like a boarded up building on the parts facing the street, inside the building it’s obvious that theft and vandalism have been rampant since its closing in 2007.

This is West Hardeeville School.

“It’s an eyesore,” said Pamela Williams, a school board member and Hardeeville resident. “I’ve brought that school up a number of times at the meetings, and I never get a response. It’s never discussed. We just need to fix it up so that it doesn’t bring the community down.”

According to Darryl Owens, the Jasper County School District Chief of Staff, the original school at West Hardeeville was built in 1963 and was built out in three phases. It is a building that was well-planned and was once well cared for. When asked what the district planned to do with the facility when it closed, Owens said he was not sure.

“I don’t know what the board intended to do with the building,” Owens said. “I wasn’t here in that capacity (chief of staff) then.”

Scenes of destruction

Part of the school was set on fire in 2009 and it has been repeatedly vandalized. Most of the wiring has been removed from the building, including the trunk wires going from the school to the electrical junctures. These have been dug up rather imaginatively with either a small backhoe or a ditch-witch — part of the canopy outside of the gym was torn down to bring it onto the grounds.

Glass has been broken out of most of the windows facing the interior “quad” part of the campus, and the building is left open to any kind of weather or destruction. Doors on the exterior have been damaged and not repaired well enough to keep people out.

The halls are filled with ceiling tiles. In most places, the interior of the roof deck is visible, as are the empty cable runs for the $12 million worth of computer and networking cables that were installed around 2001.

Cinderblock walls and cabinetry have been broken up with sledgehammers to get at plumbing pipes and fixtures like sinks and faucets. It is possible to see through to classrooms and storerooms through those holes. There are no visible air conditioning units — the housing for one of the rooftop units lies broken beside a sidewalk.

Furniture, mostly teacher’s desks and the occasional filing cabinet, are all over the building. It’s difficult to negotiate the hallways, with desk drawers having been torn out and left on top of the other trash. In the classrooms, media center cabinets have been either denuded of their television sets — which have been broken open for their wiring components — or thrown onto the floor.

“There are all kinds of specialty programs, a community center, even district offices that could go there,” Williams said. “We have nothing for our kids to do during the summer. Why not use it for that? It’s a large building that could be used to fill the needs of the community. Instead, it’s being allowed to sit empty, with everything being ripped out of it. It’s being gutted.”

Williams supported the leasing of the Bees Creek school facility in Ridgeland to the Royal Live Oaks charter school. She hoped money from that lease would help refurbish the school at Hardeeville.

The board turned down the charter school’s offer, but offered the West Hardeeville facility. On Monday the charter school made an offer to lease the facility.

Records, supplies left behind

In the offices of the elementary and middle school, records have been left behind — student records, financial records, testing records, teachers’ notes and reports.

In the middle school, there are piles of textbooks, copier toner cartridges that are brand new in the box, and at least two new slide projectors remain in unopened boxes.

In the elementary school, the wall outside the principal’s office is still decorated with “Palmetto Silver and Gold Award” flags. The certificate from the State Department of Education for one of those awards lies on the floor, almost covered in trash. In the middle school office, the trophy case is smashed. Trophies remain, broken on the floor.

It appears people live in the building, evidenced by clothes, food and candles.